The Bushie-Scrapped War
The Bushie-Scrapped War was a conflict between the Bushrangers and a raider group called the Scrapped. The conflict lasted 18 months and resulted in the deaths of hundreds, primarily due to the heavy use of combat robots by The Scrapped. The war encompassed much of the Western Suburbs and the Blue Mountains and played a large impact on Post-War culture and history of Sydney. Background The three principal members of the Bushie-Scrapped War were the Bushrangers, Tumblin' Cliffs and the Scrapped. The Bushrangers had first exited Camp K in 2087 and immediately began to aid the common Wastelander through military aid. They acted as the judge, jury and executioner of raiders and the hunters of mutants. They had earned quick respect for their professional removal of feral ghouls around the central Blue Mountains, but the Massacre at Mount Victoria had put them into a slump. By the turn of the century, they were little more than another rural settlement with bigger guns. Tumblin' Cliffs was a small rural community nestled high above Lake Booragorang. The settlements isolation prevented it from receiving many visitors and the same terrain that made agriculture difficult bred strong mountain climbers. As such, Tumblin's major source of income was guiding traders and travellers through the Blue Mountains. The Scrapped had raided settlements around the Western Suburbs, wiping them out and salvaging what they wanted. These bloody raids proved detrimental to the gang as it every settlement could only be sacked once, limiting the number of areas that could be raided. The loss of numerous settlements also limited the growth of industry and trade which lowered the value of what could be taken from these settlements. To support the Mentats addiction of Luggo and the maintenance demands of her robots, she needed to expand her area of operations. This resulted in the New Years Raid on Tumblin' Cliffs. The War The Bushie-Scrapped War itself lasted 18 months, spanning from the New Years Raid on Tumblin' Cliffs to Lai's Charge on the Scrapped's HQ. New Years Raid and Battle of Tumblin' In the early hours of January 1st, 2101, after a long night of revelry, the town of Tumblin' Cliffs was attacked by a group of 25-30 raiders. The raiders were members of the Scrapped. Taking the settlement entirely by surprise, the raiders and their robots ravaged the town, killing the men, capturing the woman, busting into chem cabinets and knocking open wine cabinets. By sunrise, the settlement was little except for a den of all manner of sin. Linda Horsendale, a guide living near the centre of town, reached the outskirts of the city the next day. Weary after a long journey, she was looking forward to the comforts of her mattress. The blake smoke dangling above the settlement alerted her to something being afoot and a quick look through her binoculars informed her of the Tumblin's new inhabitants. From her perch, she could see the main drag of town. Instead of the usual hustle and bustle between the General Store, Bar, Blacksmith and other key areas, Linda saw protectrons covered in bright paint, raiders in leather and scrap metal and a pile of burning corpses in the middle of town. Horsendale fled from her town, trekking for six days to Camp K, the home of the Bushrangers. When she informed the gate guards of what had befallen Tumblin', they took her directly to the Colonel. Horsendale begged Fitzgerald to remove the brutal raiders from her town, promising close trade ties and even a military relationship with the Bushies in exchange. Fitzgerald needed little convincing. Removing threats like the Scrapped from the wasteland was the original purpose of the Bushies. Horsendale was prepared to spend days begging for help; it took fifteen minutes for Fitzgerald to agree to her requests. January 7-28 brought about a flurry of activity in Camp K. Horsendale was debriefed and questioned numerous times on the composition of the raiders, their equipment and their general state of morale. Quartermasters dusted off Semi-Auto Rifles, painted insignias and ranks onto Combat Armour and put new batteries into radios. Drill sergeants filled themselves with as much rage as they could to whip recruits into shape. Within days, the Camp was home to drill sergeant barks, rifle fire and machining sounds. By the 27, the force, Able Platoon, Mounties Company, were ready to begin the trek, with Horsendale as their guide. They were loaded down with 6 days of food, water and ammunition, combat armour and heavy, Pre-War rifles. Able Platoon had been one of the two platoons present during the Mount Victoria Massacre. Since then, the unit had been in heavy action in an attempt to repay its actions. By the time they left Camp K, they were the most veteran, most heavily equipped unit in the Bushrangers. The actual engagement at Tumblin' Cliffs can scarcely be considered a battle. The robots were shut down to conserve power and the raiders were incapacitated by chems and alcohol. The Mounties cut through the town, putting down raiders and freeing town members. The battle lasted throughout the day and resulted in a total of 28 raiders killed and two Protecrons shut down. One Bushie was moderately injured when he accidentally turned on a robot, which hit him in the leg with its arm. Escalation After Tumblin', all participants retired to take stock. The Bushrangers were pleased with their effectiveness, especially the Able. Debriefings occurred with its commanding officer, Lieutenant Daren Lai, who praised his troops for their professionalism and conduct in battle. The remaining citizens of Tumblin' Cliffs, organised by Horsendale, reorganised the town. The new town council's first actions were to formally ally with the Bushies against the Scrapped, to reorganise themselves into a militia and to develop their defences. Finally, Luggo, reviewing the engagement through built-in monitoring equipment in the robots, issued new orders to begin to move against the Bushies and Tumblers. Luggo organised her bots and raiders, preparing to launch an attack on the Bushie outpost at Wet Falls, the first major position on the road to Camp K. Gathering 30 raiders, 3 eyebots scouts and one heavy sentry bot under the command of Red Pete, the raider force left the Scrapped HQ on the 8th. Hopped up on Psycho, Zippo and Med-X, the raiders were confident in their abilities to overwhelm the Bushie position. Red Pete was an able commander, having signed on as the Boss of the raiders within the Scrapped. Their opposition wasn't as confident. Wet Falls had been occupied by the Bushies since 2089, but never in large numbers. It served as an outpost to report mutant movements in and around the Western Suburbs of Sydney. Since 2090, it had slowly decreased in garrison and resources, being all but abandoned by the turn of the century. Following the battle of Tumblin' Cliffs, two squads from the Bushwackers Company were dispatched to the area. It was believed that, in the case of a large attack, reinforcements could be rushed down from Camp K. By mid-February, both sides had established themselves around the Pre-War town. The Bushies had made light entrenchments around the Grand View Hotel (see image below), stockpiled ammunition and constructed a light radio to make contact with home base. The Scrapped had arrived in the area and began drawing together plans for the attack. The first major battle of the war was due to start on the 16th of February, 2101. Battle of Wet Falls The Battle of Wet Falls began in the early morning when a group of ~10 raiders - backed up with two eyebots - made a probing attack on the outpost. The Raiders moved slowly and carefully through the abandoned cars on the highway. They managed to close to within 100 metres of the Bushie position before they were spotted crossing an open patch near the hotel. The ensuing firefight was short and bloody. The raider's underpowered pipe weapons lacked the range to hit the Bushies. The lasers mounted on the eyebots did prove dangerous, inflicting light casualties on the soldiers. Red Pete launched a second attack when he saw his raiders pinned down. He split his forces, sending 15 raiders with an eyebot to attack from the south and 5 raiders supporting the sentry bot to attack from the north. While the Bushies weapons were capable of taking down the lightly armoured and armed raiders, the more heavily equipped robots proved significantly more dangerous. The commanding officer, Lt. Sarah Nay, ordered a fighting withdrawal on the second day after nearly half her combat force had become casualties. The raider onslaught proved endless. The Bushies pulled out on the night of the 18th, leaving behind much of their heavy equipment. The Scrapped awake on the 19th to find Wet Falls abandoned with large sums of ammunition, food and water available for the taking. Red Pete sent one of the remaining eyebots back to Luggo to tell her of his success in battle and pressed his remaining troops in a harassing attack on the Bushies. While the majority of the Bushies managed to escape from the raiders, three more soldiers were killed in the ensuing firefights. The Calm Ultimately, the Bushrangers managed to retreat to Camp Fitzie some 6 kilometres further down the highway. Here, an established and well-equipped fort welcomed them in. The exhausted Bushies were allowed rest and their medical needs were attended to. The 70-strong fort easily repelled the drip of exhausted raiders that followed Nay's unit. At this point in time, the war slowed in intensity. The opening two months informed both sides of the danger present in the conflict. Ten Bushies had been killed and five more wounded. In the scavenging based economy of the Post-War world, the loss of armour, weapons and ammunition at Wet Falls - while not a devasting blow - stung the Bushies heavily. Luggo's losses were even more damaging. 5 robots destroyed and 37 raiders killed was devastating for the gang. If casualties followed a similar trend, every raider in the Scrapped would be killed before winter. Both sides needed a moment to rest and recuperate. The Bushrangers increased ammunition processing, restocked with traders and began to train recruits in significantly greater numbers. New Bushies were drilled in the art of long ranger marksmanship, locating and exploiting chinks in robot armour and learning to locate the guaranteed killed spots on chemmed-out raiders. Luggo doubled her efforts in the workshop, up-armouring every robot, reinforcing every plate, and up-gunning as many as possible. Red Pete was entrusting in bringing in more human raiders and, for his part, delivered to Luggo 45 brand new soldiers. This retraining and rearmament took up much of the first half of the year. In fact, by the time the Bushrangers and the Scrapped were ready for war, the summer heat had arrived. September through February, the incredibly high temperatures made any large-scale movement impossible. Some skirmishes occurred, primarily with Scrapped robots attacking Bushranger outposts. It was only after the fall rains arrived that the War began again in earnest. The March Offensive The March Offensive was when the war truly began. While the New Year brought little more to the Scrapped than a moment to touch up the paint, for the Bushies it was a time to organise, train and begin the production of new units. Tons of ammunition and weapons arrived at Camp K as did almost 60 new recruits - 3 whole platoons of men and women. Tactics were revised to combat a combined force of mechanised and human enemies. From the Special Snowflakes, an entire platoon was equipped and trained exclusively in close quarters combat with mock-up Mr Gutsy's and Protectrons. The Bushrangers forged themselves into a combat juggernaut. The Fall Rains signalled the start of the Bushie offensive. Headed by the capable Mounties, the Bushie assault force numbered nearly 300 men. The Scrapped stood no chance. Wet Falls was retaken on March 27, the raiders at Springwood wiped out on April 7th, and the primary robot store yard at Springwood fell to the Bushies on the 1st of May. By June, as winter grew colder and colder, the Bushies were approaching the Old US Army base in Faulconbridge. For 47 men killed and 89 wounded, the Mounties had advanced 25 kilometres and inflicted significant losses, both against the human raiders and Luggo's robots. The March Offensive culminated in the Siege of Faulconbridge. Robot and human forces occupied Pre-War military defences, strengthened by scratch-built laser and machine gun turrets. The first direct assault on the facility saw more men killed than the entire first portion of the Offensive (53 men killed). The subsequent siege saw a "drip" of casualties - one or two men killed or wounded every week, for weeks and weeks. Major Dennis Erikes, the commanding officer of the assault force, settled in his Bushies for long-term occupation, ordering trenches dug and requesting reinforcements from Camp K. The Assault Through June and July, Erikes did little but further entrench his forces and request reinforcements. By July, nearly 400 men - three-quarters of all Bushie - were assembled around Faulconbridge. To the troops on the ground, it appeared as if the Major had lost the nerve to continue the offensive. As the weather began to warm up and the chances of the war continuing into 2103, the Colonel agreed with this judgment. On August 2nd, 2102, Major Erikes was transferred to an administrative position and his position as commander in the field was replaced by Sasha Lai. Lai was a soldier all her life. Joining the Bushrangers in 2085, Lai distinguished herself as a platoon commander in the Mutant Wars that characterised the Bushie's early years. During the decaying years after the Mount Victoria Massacre, Lai remained commander of the Home Guard Battalion within Camp K, dealing with civil and military offences. Due to the particularly bad handly of a case of AWOL soldiers in '91, Lai was removed from frontline command. Lai's appointment to command in August was a signal to the troops: the war was ending in 2102. Lai began heavy recon gathering and ordered increased patrols. Incorporating her Anti-Robot specialists into her general infantry, creating a synthesis of the two, she ordered an assault on the compound on the 20th of August. Lai's Charge - as it was later christened - was a phyric victory for the Bushrangers. The outer defences were quickly breached, yet the tight enclosed military base sucked in soldiers. Clearing the base and killing Luggo and Red Pete saw the death of 77 Bushranger soldiers - nearly a quarter of all troops under Lai's command. However, the death of the raiding duo marked the end of the Scrapped and of the war. Casualties The war was costly to all involved members. The 18 months of fighting saw 200 Bushies killed and 150 wounded out of a total combat force of 450. The raid on Tumblin' Cliffs all but wiped the town out. It was only the flow of refugees from the remaining settlements in the Western suburbs that brought the town to life. Finally, every single Scrapped robot and raider was killed during the conflict. Consequences The Bushie-Scrapped war has two primary points of influence - delaying the reoccupation of Sydney until the end of the 22nd century and causing the Bushrangers to regrow their influence in the Blue Mountains area. The Scrapped annihilated numerous settlements around the Western Suburbs and the war saw the few that survived empty. If these settlements had survived, it is likely the Sydney CBD would have seen human scavengers by the 2150s. The fact this didn't happen likely factors into the number of stable settlements in Sydney in 2287 - without an influx of small-scale human habitation, raiders found little to live off. The second major consequence of the Bushie-Scrapped War was the rebirth of the Bushrangers into a major faction. Without the war, it is likely the Bushrangers would have merely become another survivalist group in the Blue Mountains harking back to history. Instead, the war saw an incredible influx of manpower and materials and energised the leadership into taking an active role in the Blue Mountains region. Category:History Category:New South Wales